I love trains and the sense of history riding Amtrak long-distance trains gives me. If you ride the Crescent from the Northeast to New Orleans, you are traveling over the same route on almost the same schedule as everyone who rode the Southerner, beginning with its first trip in the early ‘forties. So far, I’ve resisted putting my fictional characters on trains. The occasion hasn’t arisen, and one of the worst things a writer can do is force matters.